So it turns out that search engines may not be all they’re cracked up to be – with possibly huge implications for government, of all places.

NextGov, a newish online newsletter on technology and government, cites research by James Evans of the University of Chicago, who studied a database of 34 million science articles. Evans found that, as more articles came online, they were less likely to be cited in research – and those that were cited tended to be more recent.

“Searching online is more efficient,” Evans wrote, “and hyperlinks quickly put researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but they may also accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas grappled with by scholars.”

NextGov also noted Evans’s suggestion – however counterintuitive – that poor indexing actually makes print library research more valuable. “Poor indexing—indexing by titles and authors, primarily within journals—likely had the unintended consequence of actually helping the integration of science and scholarship,” Evans wrote. “By drawing researchers into a wider array of articles, print browsing and perusal may have facilitated broader comparisons and scholarship.”

NextGov then gets to the point for the public sector:

“It doesn’t take much to see the implications for government analysts of any type – intelligence and law enforcement agents, environmentalists, economists, health researchers and, of course, scientists — who use Internet search engines as well as proprietary ones linked into government databases, such as Justice Department case files. Highly relevant and specific search results narrow findings and can possibly prohibit the eurekas that come from a broader search, which can link what is seemingly unrelated material that provides real insight. Or does the Internet’s benefits outweigh those costs?”

A good question, deserving of an answer.

(Evans’s notes, on his blog, were actually in response to Nick Carr’s now famous [or infamous] article “Is Google Making Us Stupid” in The Atlantic. Carr argued that the Internet has rewired our brains so that it diminishes our ability to be reflective and to be more interpretive).

You will no doubt be familiar with the breathless tone to much popular discussion of various social media tools. They’re everything from “transformational” to “revolutionary” and beyond, everywhere from Big Business to Big Government..

There is of course something to that. Wikis are routinely fuelling all manner of leading-edge tech development in most orders of government, and communications managers everywhere are trying to figure out to use these applications to engage their various communities.

Still, a little perspective is in order. Facebook, for example – the best known of today’s social networking brands – has clear roots in Usenet, which attracted hundreds of thousands to cyberspace before flame wars scorched that good earth.

As for the popular deployment of wiki projects, U.S. writer J. Davidson Frame, an astute writer on technology in a public sector setting, finds origins everywhere from ancient Athens to the Oxford English Dictionary. (It was propelled by Wikipedia-like contributions from thousands of volunteers – 3.5 million contributions, as a matter of fact).

Frame notes those and other parallels for the U.S. newsletter NextGov and then takes it up a notch:

“When thinking about introducing social networking concepts into government, perhaps the most interesting question is: How far can we go in this direction? Obviously, we face Constitutional constraints on how we govern the USA. But this shouldn’t stop us from raising intriguing thought questions: Can self-regulating social networks replace Congress and the President? In creating regulations, does it make sense to develop them in the same way that Wikipedia entries are created? Should policies be created by communities of interest comprised of people who are most heavily affected by them?

“Given the growing force of social networks, it is time to start – in the words of Herman Kahn – thinking about the unthinkable.”

Transformational indeed, you could say.

One of the sticking points for Web 2.0 in a public sector context has always been privacy and security. It’s a notion crucial to both the mission and mandate of all orders of government and the general confidence of cybercitizens in online government.

There are signs, however, that such concerns may be needlessly overstated.

A recent U.S. survey by Mintel Comperemedia, for example, found that two-thirds of Americans were more concerned about security than they were five years ago. But in nearly same breath, Mintel analysts noted that identity theft is actually declining.

“The actual risk of having your identity stolen online is not as high as many people think,” eMarketer quoted Susan Menke, senior analyst at Mintel. “Financial services companies are trying to reassure consumers, but their marketing messages aren’t sticking. Companies need to find innovative new ways to convince Americans that their identities are secure online and when using e-mail.”

The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice indicated that less than 9 per cent of identity theft is a result of online scams. Rather, most identity theft is perpetrated through stolen mail and other low-tech methods.

In one sense, such findings support the laissez-faire approach to privacy and security which characterizes Web 2.0 tools like Facebook. In the longer term, however, what e-government managers could be looking at here is the very thin edge of a wedge that leads to new views of privacy and security issues in a public sector context. Not exactly plus ça change, maybe. But worth noting.

The shorthand on Web 2.0 in the public sector, you will doubtless know, is that it’s fine as far as it goes – but it’s really better suited to the administration of government rather than its public interface. All those wikis, whether driven by technology or policy or even program management, bear ample testimony to the argument.

There’s nothing wrong with that, though; in fact, as a recent Transport Canada study reminds, there’s some highly imaginative work going on in those back rooms,

Blog Research and Analysis takes a long look at the blogosphere and its possible utility in Transport Canada’s world. Managed by the department’s communications branch, the study blesses blogs on a number of fronts. Relevant bloggers should be tracked in media monitoring scans, for example, after consultation with departmental program experts.

Beyond that kind of obvious conclusion, though, the report calls on the department to enter the blogosphere itself. Blogs “put a human face on government,” it argues; they can “make government more open (and) build a profile for a leader.”

That said, the report also lays down five potential risks for public servants contemplating this brave new world. From the study:

·         Organizational blogs are bound to receive negative comments.

·         Once a blog is started, it must not be allowed to fade away.

·         Employee bloggers could, for example, post misinformation or defamatory remarks, or use inappropriate or disrespectful language.

·         Lazy moderators.

·         Legal liabilities.

There’s more, worth tracking down, online or off, if you’re up to another big step on the thousand-mile journey.

For all the churn around Web 2.0 in the public sector– can we? should we? how much would it cost? – it turns out that there’s a much more prosaic possibility than the conversion of Facebook into a focus group gizmo. And it’s one with built-in appeal to government

In emergencies, according to a report prepared for the University of Colorado, people are more likely to turn first not to traditional media but to social media sites, blogs, instant messaging and other staples of the 2.0 world.

Twitter and Google mashups in particular are useful, according to the study.

A related study of wildfires in southern California last year found that people used Twitter to keep friends informed of their condition, minute by minute. They also used Google Maps to track the progress of the fire.

e-Marketer Daily said the study found mass media unreliable “as they struggled to access remote areas from which Web site users with an Internet connection could easily report.   Media sites also focused on the ‘sensational,’ such as fires close to celebrities’ homes, which distorted the overall picture, the scientists said.”

It’s an intriguing finding; shouldn’t require too much in the way of Deep Thinking to weave 2.0 into the array of emergency management tools that are standard everywhere these daysl

From the Department of Things You Probably Never Thought Of:

It’s turning out that e-mail discussion of public policy issues may be a no-no. That, at any rate, is the thrust of a ruling in Venice, Fla., where a privacy activist complained that four city councilors had discussed public business via private e-mail.

The upshot of the case is that the four councilors are to have their computers copied, for perusal by the complainant, but only after they’ve reviewed the contents and removed material they feel infringes on their own privacy. You can catch some of the byplay at http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080701/NEWS/644032742/1661.

Hey, it’s the Excited States – Florida no less – but it’s also a reminder that, in an age where Privacy resides primly on Tier !, right over there beside Accountability, you never know where some of these cyberthingies will end up.

So far, what happens when Web 2.0 meets e-government is mostly turning out to be a lot of wikis. That’s one of Martha’s Good Things, to be sure; who knew intranets could be so easy, not to mention useful. But there are other circles to be squared out there.

Like, f’rinstance, politics. Or: Politics, with a capital P.

The public sector has made great strides in the wired world over the past 15 years or so, moving from simple information pages to ever more complex adventures in transaction. But it’s happened without much in the way of input from those elected folk – MPs, MLAs, city councillors – who are supposed to be at the top of the food chain.

Not that the relative absence of politicians hasn’t been useful. It’s given CIOs and such a fairly free hand for the heavy lifting that goes with pilot projects and leading edge architecture. Indeed, more than one senior bureaucrat has argued that politicians would only gum up the works.

That argument was good for a long time, as e-government found its feet. Now, though, it’s matured, to a point where it arguably could use a little something from the legislators who are supposed to represent the will of the people. It wouldn’t take much; a meeting of ministers responsible for e-government, maybe. Or a high-level public airing of the possibilities of digital democracy.

Meanwhile, there’s a lingering irony in the absence of politicians at the shrine of e-government: Most of them have their own web pages these days, and of course they’re as Blackberry-crazed as anybody else. All that’s needed is a formal touch to get a little something going at the big tables. What the hey; they do it for everything from fiscal management to tourism; why not e-government?